Some people will do anything to get ahead in life.
Busted
In grad school, I gave a draft of one of my papers to a professor for feedback, didn’t hear sh_t from him, then he announces a seminar a few weeks later with almost the same title as the paper. White flags everywhere I go into the seminar and BAM he’s presenting my f_cking work and I guess he just expected I wasn’t going to say anything cause he’s a professor? It was ridiculous because I completely don’t know what he thought I’d do or how he’d get away with this sh_t. It was a decade ago but even then there were electronic paper trails a mile long. So question period I throw my hand up and he’s ignoring me, I swear he was pretending not to see me, but then the pompous assh_le actually says, “yes, student?” He f*cking acknowledged me by name! So I asked “You didn’t cite me even once, don’t you think you should have at least done that?” To which he replied, “I’m not sure what you mean, do you have a conference or journal paper on a similar topic? I must have missed it but I’d be happy to include it if you give me the title and source…” So all I couldn’t really lose it on him but I did cut him off with, “the paper was the one I gave you two weeks ago which you’ve pretty much ripped off all of this research from word for word, and I’m not sure yet when it’ll be published but you’ll be happy to know I submitted it to a journal right after I didn’t hear back from you…” People were pretty stunned. It was only like 30 maybe 40 people in the room but they were all quiet from there. I ended up having a nice talk with the department head, and that professor was “disciplined” but I know he was still there for the rest of the term. I did get a half-assed “sorry about the confusion” email from the guy. (Source)
Funbrain
So I was in grade school. The teachers let us kids play on funbrain after we’re done with our work on the computers. I didn’t have one at home, so this was the sh_t. I’d get on and play the arcade mode tons. Well, I got pretty far. It would give you a password after you beat a new game which would allow you to keep your progress. Now, I was playing for six months when I finally got farther than everybody else. I beat, I believe, Mighty Guy 2, which f_ck that f_cking game. Impossible to beat. So I got the password “smell6”. It was bugged, though, so you couldn’t get any farther. It would just let you play the games before that. And, being the good friend I am, I gave it to my friend who sucked sh_t at all the games. He just wanted to be able to play the games before that, so why the hell not.
But that motherf_cker gave it to the cool guy in school. And that motherf_cking piece of sh_t went around giving it to all the girls and saying it was his. I heard him make up sh_tty lies the whole time I stood there dumbfounded. And the girls seemed impressed.
And, yes, it was my password. It gave you a new randomly generated password each time you beat a level, and everybody was f_cked with the smell6 glitch. I grinded back up to that point after that and got a new code that wasn’t glitched. Max, if you read this, you son of a b_tch. I still remember your transgressions over a decade later. And I’m never going to forget them. (Source)
Fifty Shades Of Grey
Fifty Shades of Grey. And I’m not talking about the fact that it’s Twilight fan fiction. It is (and some of the scenes are even paraphrased so closely from Twilight that there could be a case for plagiarism), but what a lot of people don’t know is that it’s also a mishmash of other popular Twilight fanfics. Sometimes it’s blatant rip-offs, other times it’s just stealing certain scenes or characterizations or fanon. This is why Edward/Christian will sound like a posh British business man one scene, and then an american teenager the next –because he’s essentially just an amalgamation of every popular Edward characterization in the fandom at the time. Basically, EL James was in the community for a while and took note of the most popular fanfics. These were fics like “The Office,” about a sexy workplace affair, and “The Submissive,” which was the first really popular BDSM fanfic in the fandom, and even “Midnight Desire,” which was an erotic high school satire of the first Twilight novel. I say ‘worst’ not only because of how huge FSOG became and how much Erika made from it, but also because despite mining Twilight fan fiction by borrowing ideas from the most popular fanfics, she somehow managed to pilfer the worst elements. All of the fics she mined from were actually pretty entertaining. It’s a complete mystery how she could steal from them and still manage to have produced such a pile of absolute sh*t. (Source)
Screw You Buchner
I’ve not technically seen it but I discovered that while doing research to write my PhD thesis. In 1871 a female Russian scientist named Maria Manasseina discovered that both Koch and Pasteur were wrong in one of their frequent disputes, this time over “what is yeast and how does it perform fermentation”. Koch thought it was an enzyme, Pasteur thought it was a micro-organism. Manasseina showed that it was actually a bit of both, a micro-organism that contained an enzyme. To prove it, she crushed yeast with very fine sands and used the dead “juice” to perform fermentation. 20 years later, a german scientist named Eduard Buchner, well aware of her previous work, declared publicly that “her results were probably contaminated with other micro-organisms”, proceeded to perform the exact same experiment, and got the 1907 Nobel prize in chemistry for it. F_ck you Buchner, you slimy f_ck. (Source)
Ultra D*uche
My boss told me and my friend to decorate the inside of the store with Christmas lights and decorations. It took us 4 hours and a sh_t ton of stupid ass lights (One light goes out they all go out) but it was badass looking with deers drinking blue light water and a cool ass blowup Santa we found in the back. The boss comes back and hates it but because it took 4 hours for us to do, he did not to want to try and fix it. So the next day the boss is not at work, so i ask were he went and they tell me that he got the day off and got $1000 and a microwave for his awesome decoration skills. He did not tell me and my friend that the decoration was for a company contest. He just kept the money for himself and gave us nothing. I quit the next day, after he told everyone how he did all the work while my friend helped. He didn’t even remember that I was “helping” too. Total d_ck lamp. (Source)
“He Just Froze”
Years ago I had a boss that would get assigned a task from his boss and then immediately assign it to someone else. But he would always do it in person so there wasn’t a paper trail. Once I got my work stolen enough times I decided to get back at him. It was a project that needed information gathered. A whole bunch of us including his boss were involved in the meeting to check on it. His boss tells him to present. My boss tells me to present. I turn to the room and go “I was supposed to research this? You never assigned it to me. Did I miss an email? I’m sorry” His boss is livid “You delegated but never followed up? When did you send him the email?” He just froze and started apologizing. I never got his stupid projects anymore. (Source)
Not So Chill Now
Years ago I was an IT guy supporting a law firm. One of the lawyers was a pretty chill dude and brought in his personal laptop with a cracked screen to be repaired. I fixed it in exchange for legal advice about a payment app I was developing. It dealt with government money, so there were a lot of rules attached. He told me some things were illegal but I was mostly right. The technical hurdles were too big for me at the time. Two years later, I find a similar business online. I want to see how they’re doing things. It’s doing the easy way he said was illegal. I also find his face on the about us page as CEO. He left the firm to start this business he stole from me with a 2 year head start. (Source)
Sure Enough
My father has been an architect for 40 plus years. He designs high end custom homes in a very wealthy area on the west coast USA. One day he was driving around and on one particular street he noticed a home that looked very familiar. Sure enough it was an exact copy of a house he designed years prior. The house was built on the beach. The floor plan was the exact same, the materials were the exact same, the size was the exact same. The only subtle difference was the shape and size of a balcony and a laundry room was different. Someone who he knows got a hold of his original drawings and made a multi million dollar home on the beach to make a fat profit. They sold it at the height of the real estate boom. (Source)
“Industry Best Practice”
My boss got an award that was considered to be an “industry best practice” for not one but TWO of my programs I developed. She got all the credit, I did all the work and I didn’t even get a high five let alone a “nice work.” (Source)
“Stop Being Petty”
I wrote and commented my name into software for a large oil field service company. When I was done, I let other people in the company use it. It worked extremely well and became very popular My coworker decided to take credit for it and got quite a bonus for “his” work. After I showed my boss my git history and comments, I was told to stop being petty and that I shouldn’t try and take credit for someone else’s work. I quit shortly afterwards. (Source)
The Brilliant Idea
My boss asked me for ideas and when I presented what I thought was a great one, he raked me over the coals and treated me like it was the worst idea he’d ever heard. I felt so stupid for even suggesting it, he shot it down from so many different angles and in such a harsh way that I considered giving my two weeks notice. And a few weeks later, I was informed that his new idea was being put into production…and he even received a congratulations from his boss for the brilliant idea…my brilliant idea that he’d put so much effort into crushing me over. F_cking d_ckhead. (Source)